


the future's unwritten, the past is a corridor (i'm at the exit, looking back through the hall)

by likelightninginabottle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anchors, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, POV Second Person, Trauma and Healing and Self-Discovery, Trouble Distinguishing Reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29856279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likelightninginabottle/pseuds/likelightninginabottle
Summary: Here's something you think you know: you're alive.At least, most days, you're pretty sure of it.(Or: how to become greater than the sum of your parts. A story told in three acts.)
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	the future's unwritten, the past is a corridor (i'm at the exit, looking back through the hall)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aunaree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunaree/gifts).



> because you are SO good at the dark, gritty, violent, cathartic kind of angst, and I thought you would appreciate this :)
> 
> okay, friends, this one is ANGSTY. it ends happy, but Wow. I don't know, I was experimenting with the 2nd person pov, and this came out.  
> please check the tags before you read on. also additional trigger warnings for some pretty heavy dissociation and passive suicidal ideation.
> 
> love y'all, please take care of yourselves <3

Here's something you think you know: you're alive.

At least most days, you're pretty sure of it. In the cracks of the day between filling up your truck and dodging the cops and sneaking into the diner where the oldest waitress takes in your eyebags and wrinkled clothes, unkempt hair and the accumulation of dirt on your skin that pairs well with the blood that's always under your fingernails, and has enough pity and guilt to slip you an extra piece of pie.

(Her pity tastes ashy, like gunpowder. You wrinkle your nose, but it doesn't help with the scent. You remember when she threw a brick into your truck, when people started losing their minds. Sometime in between getting taken by hunters and the siege of the Sheriff's station and the clusterfuck that was the abandoned zoo. She waited until you were sleeping before she and her colleague hurled a brick through the window, while you were curled up in the backseat, trying to escape your own sins, only to have it break half your face. The brick doesn't hit you as hard as the _omega_ symbol carved into it does. Your eye is black for days, but no one notices, because you don't have anyone anymore. You killed anyone who ever gave a damn, and the smell of pity makes your stomach turn, but you don't have a choice, because it's either _this_ , hunting through the preserve for more raw rabbit, or _starving_. You take the pie. You don't look her in the eye, and she does you the courtesy of not commenting on the blood under your nails, on your shirt, in your eyes.)

Sometimes, you're not so sure of it, because the sister you killed has an awful habit of sneaking up on you. It started out in nightmares and shadowy corners, but now she hangs out in broad daylight. She's sitting across the booth right now, sipping on a milkshake, hair wet and dripping onto the nasty tiles that cover the floor, every drop of water like a gunshot. Skin sallow, eyes dead and empty.

 _Hey, sis,_ you manage, and for a second, you wonder if she'll respond. If she'll quirk a smile, say, _hey, kid_ , in that infuriating _knowing_ way that she used to. She doesn't. She reaches out, plunges a hand into your chest, and you welcome it, because it's the only thing that's keeping you grounded. It's the first time anyone has touched you in a month, and you've been floating through town like _you're_ the ghost. That's when you're less sure. When you do things like bump into Tracy at the supermarket, and she turns around, claw marks still in her body.

 _Was it worth it?_ she asks. The orange in her hand isn't ripe, and you wonder if you should tell her so. _Was it worth it, to be powerful? To stay alive?_

 _Am I alive?_ you wonder aloud, but it doesn’t matter, because your answer doesn't change. _No_ , you reply. _No, it wasn't_.

 _All I did was care about you_ , she says. _And look where it got me._

Her claws puncture through the orange, juice dripping onto the floor. She hasn't laid a hand on you but you're paralyzed anyways. Absently, you wonder if she'll have to pay for it. You hope _you_ won't, because you don't have the money for things like fresh produce.

You don’t say _I'm sorry_ , because what difference would it make?

Instead, you say: _I would switch places with you, if I could._

She drops the orange.

 _I know_ , she says back, which is something so unexpected that it makes you take a step back, back hitting the grocery cart which skids a bit on the waxed linoleum. _Are you stupid? I know. I always knew you better than the rest of them. I know._

She steps closer, and your throat is closing up. The edges of your vision blurring.

 _What are you doing to yourself, Theo?_ she asks. You don't have an answer. You open your mouth to say _something_ , _anything_ , but before you can get a sound out, you wake up.

You wake up, and you’re in the morgue. Metal against your back, lights flickering. Blood, and guilt, and Tara, and _you don't have to stop._

\------

Here’s something you think you know: you're okay.

After everything, your heart is still beating, and so is your best friend's, and your _pack's_.

You had to tell your parents what you are, what you've _become_. Had to watch your Mom's face flinch away from you for just a second, for the _second_ time in your life, and you're so ashamed of yourself you can barely breathe. Your Dad -- your _real_ father, not the sperm donor who just _calls_ himself one -- huffs out a shocked laugh, says: _Well, this definitely explains a lot. To be honest, I was starting to worry it was drugs._

You wish you could've inherited his easy-going, well-mannered mind instead of the roiling, rampaging beast that lives in your blood, that settles underneath your skin like an itch, even before you got the Bite. You had a reason back _then_ , back when things were louder and messier and the house smelled like booze and you had to hide the bruises underneath your shirt and defend the sloppy swings coming at your face with nothing but your own, _smaller_ fists, and the broken liquor bottle that you nabbed from where it had rolled underneath the coffee table, waving it in front of his face like a threat while he _laughed_. You had a reason, back then, for the anger, because it made you _stronger_ , gave you the _power_ to fight back, to wake up one night when your Mom's crying in the kitchen got a little too loud and woke you up, and you heard her begging.

 _Please, please, leave him alone, he hasn't done anything_ , and she's following him up the stairs and shaking his shoulder, trembling, and your heart is pounding away, pounding so hard you think it might beat out of your chest. Your window has a net for insects so you can't climb out and you wouldn't anyways, not with your Mom still in the house, but something about the heavy footsteps on the stairs make you think that this time is going to be different. This time is going to be different, this time is going to change everything.

There's a knife hidden underneath your bed. It's been there since you were eight years old. You don't have time to duck underneath and grab it, before the door to your bedroom is flying open.

He drags you out by the scruff of your neck and he's drunker than he usually is, swaying and babbling and absolutely _stinking_ to high hell, and there's a bruise on your Mom's cheek that wasn't there when you saw her last, and she's _sobbing,_ she's _pleading_ for your life, and all you have time to think is: _This time is going to be different. This time is going to change everything_.

You aren't even a teenager yet, and so it takes all the strength in your arms to wrench your wrist out of his crushing grip, but it just takes a light shove to send up tumbling down the stairs, limbs flailing askew like a rag doll.

His head cracks violently against the last step, his body goes still. His limbs look like they're facing the wrong direction, like a doll that someone pulled the arms and legs off, and then stuffed them back into the wrong sockets. You stare. Your Mom wraps her arms around your whole body, presses her mouth to your head, and she's still shaking, whispering, _Oh my god, oh my god,_ half-hysterical, but it barely registers over the blood _roaring_ in your ears.

You should feel bad, you think, but all you feel is numb. And _angry._

These days, there's less of a reason for the anger. Your Mom still loves you, despite everything you put her through, despite the fact that there's no _way_ you don't remind her of _him_. Your Dad loves you despite the fact that you’re a patchwork person, taped together in the wrong places and held together with determination and stubbornness and that same, burning anger.

You know Scott and Stiles worry about you like they worried about you when you were first Turned, snark and ill-humored _ticking time bomb_ jokes aside, but the truth is, the werewolf thing isn't all that difficult. The steady breathing, maintaining your heart rate, focusing on an anchor, controlling the rage inside you that just wants to _explode_ , that wants to rip and _tear_ \-- that's all old hat. It's stuff you've already done before -- stuff you've spent your _life_ doing -- and that's what made the Anuk-ite so fucking _terrifying_. The control that you've spent _years_ building up, slipping through your fingers like _water_ , and you felt like you were losing yourself, like the anger was finally taking over.

It's hard to separate yourself from the wolf in those moments when the fear clouds your brain.

 _That's why you get angry when you're scared_.

He didn't know how true it was when he said it. Except for how he might, because he seems to know everything about you, for reasons that go beyond his pasted on smirk, and deliberately smarmy _, I did my research_ , but whatever. You're trying not to think about him too much, because that's _another_ anchor you've lost, another person who mattered who you've driven away.

And you failed a test yesterday, you _know_ you did, because all you wrote at the top was your name, before jotting down some vocabulary words and drawing a fairly unflattering picture of Stiles, but when it was passed back today, the smear of ink at the top says _A+._ The smell of guilt wafting off of your calculus teacher is so horribly pungent, that it makes your eyes water. It smells like Brett's bloodied body on the road. Blots of red ink dot the top of the page, fresh blood spilled across a well-lit intersection.

Headlights burning into your corneas while you shifted in front of everyone, finally proved to everyone what they _feared_ about you, what you _feared_ about yourself for so long. _Monster._

The afterimage burned into your eyes of your teacher's license plate as it knocked Brett's body down. You pass by the car in the parking lot every single day on your way into the building, and you only have to stop to throw up in the bushes beside it about a third of the time, so you think, all things considered, you're coping pretty well.

Scott and Stiles and Lydia are _gone_ , the whole town smells like _rotting_ guilt, Theo is _fuck_ knows where doing _fuck_ knows what, and Mason and Corey are treating you with kid-gloves, like you're going to blow up the second someone looks at you wrong.

Other than all that, though, you're okay.

\------

Here's something that's less alarming than it probably should be: you wake up with your hand inside your chest.

Your hand is closing around your heart. You think, almost absently, that you could rip it out, if you wanted. Your fingers close around it, feel it pulsating.

 _Thud, thud, thud_.

You don't, because too many people over the years have wanted you dead, and you're too spiteful to do them a favor.

Tara sitting in the passenger seat, feet propped up against the dash carelessly. She turns to face you and pouts, theatrical.

 _You put me out of a job_ , she says, like she used to when you stole her chores and took the resulting allowance money too, and you laugh. It feels good to laugh, even though it makes blood spurt from the wound in your chest.

Tracy's in the driver's seat.

 _Theo, that looks bad,_ she says. She meets your eyes in the rearview mirror, and you laugh at that too. There's blood coating the roof of your mouth, the seats of your car. Your claws are stained with it, and undoubtedly, so is the rest of you, but that's not something you can just wash off. There'll be blood on your hands no matter how many times you scrub your palms _raw_ trying to get rid of it.

The blood is welcome, as is the _intense_ pain that comes with actually clawing your own chest open, the _debilitating_ agony radiating throughout your body when you climb into the front seat, because at least then you're _sure_ that this is real, that you're _alive_ , even though Tara's still sitting in the passenger seat, hair dripping down onto the leather. Tracy hums a song in the back, and blood smears across the steering wheel as you make a sharp turn into the parking lot of the school.

There's no one there -- it's a _weekend_ , after all, and after everything that happened, probably no one wants to spend more time there than they absolutely have to. You still feel violently nauseous every time you walk into the library, so you can relate.

There's no one in the locker room, like you expected. It's the only place in town where you can catch a free shower. The gym is too expensive, and you don't have access to any private bathrooms. And anyways, enough of the people who work here have tried to kill you, that you think a guilt trip would work, even if you _were_ discovered. It's been _months_ \-- almost since the _Ghost Riders_ \-- that you've been doing this, and no one has figured out yet, so you think you're okay, turning the dial of the shower and stepping underneath the spray, clothes and all, letting the grime and blood and bile and sweat swirl down the drain with the rest of your weariness.

\------

Here's something that's more comforting than it should be: you _smell_ something familiar, warm and artificial, and something you never thought you would smell again, and all of a sudden you're running.

There's someone you care for more than you probably _should_ , but you can't bring yourself to care. You were only here to make up a test you missed when all this was going down, but your legs don't stop until the door is flying open, and you see him, freezing where he's stood under the spray.

He turns, slack-jawed, and you want to say something real, something _honest_ , like _you're here_ , but not something _too_ honest, like _I missed you_ , but then you see the blood on his shirt and every other though slides straight out of your brain.

Your hands are on him before you even know what your doing, some kind of survival fight-or-flight reflex activated as your hands close around his ribs, and you're shouting, _what the hell is this? what the fuck did you_ do _?_ and something complicated and absolutely _horrible_ absolutely _roils_ under the placid lake waters of his unbothered expression, scent going sharp and bitter for a split-second before _that's_ also suppressed, and you realize you're squeezing too hard, so you let go, only to see the claw marks tearing through his shirt. His claws are tipped in a dried kind of brown -- the crusty kind of blood, the kind you have to scrape off as it peels away in flakes.

He grits his teeth, shoves you away, yells _fuck you_ , with so much _venom_ in his voice that it almost takes you aback.

 _Oh my god,_ you breathe, or maybe yell, you can't tell at this point, can't tell if your screaming, can't tell that you're backing him up against the wall. _Did you--?_

 _Do this to yourself_ , you don't say, instinctively shoving the hem of his shirt up, trying to get it up to where the tears in the fabric were, but there are two dark bruises on his rib cage in the shape of your hands, that make the breath stutter in your lungs.

(The bruises are just two dark marks in a sea of other blemishes, but you're trying not to think too hard about that. Trying not to think too hard about how you could count his ribs from where they were just _barely_ constrained by his thin skin.)

He shoves the shirt back down, twists the shower knob so hard that your half-surprised it doesn't snap off, and shoulders past you. The bruises are burned into your vision, something dark and _ashamed_ flooding your stomach.

 _I'm sorry_ , you say, but he's shaking his head, pushing his hair back out of his eyes, and making his way out of the locker room, flinging the door open with a powerful flick of his wrist, water dripping from his soaked-through clothes.

 _Don't apologize for telling the truth_ , he says, and you follow him out, scrambling into the hallway. _Don't apologize for telling me how you_ really _feel._

You don't know what to say to that, to the sunken circles underneath his eyes and the way that the wolf under your skin is calm for the first time in _weeks_ , instead of feeling feral and discontented and lashing out like a cornered animal.

 _I didn't kill anyone_ , he laughs, loud and bitter. It echoes down the hallway. The sharp, painful twist in his scent floods your lungs and makes your eyes water.

 _I didn't,_ you try, but he's laughing louder, almost doubling over. _Think you did_ , you don't finish, because the stain on his shirt is getting darker, but he's just laughing and laughing and laughing.

 _What's wrong?_ he asks, high and mocking, in between peals of laughter. _Upset that you don't have a reason to put me back down there?_

The circles below his eyes are dark and foreboding. His pupils are almost all the way dilated in a way that makes you taste _dread_ in the back of your throat.

The light flickers above.

 _What are you doing to yourself, Theo?_ you ask, and your voice almost cracks, right down the middle.

Theo stops laughing, all of a sudden. His eyes flick to the light above. To you. To the water dripping steadily onto the floor from his soaked-through shirt, and when his eyes meet yours again, you see the _weariest_ look you've ever seen on anyone before.

 _I see_ , he says slowly, shaking his head. _Clever,_ he mutters, _you almost had me_.

 _Theo?_ you ask, because his scent has shifted again, going _determined_ , and it makes something rise up inside you, something sharper and more _urgent_ than the kind of fear the Anuk-ite filled you with. _What are you talking about?_

 _I'm tired of your games,_ he says. _I can't do this anymore_.

 _Theo?_ you repeat, helpless, because he's not making any sense, but he's not listening to you. You take a step forward, toward him, and he doesn't even seem to realize it.

 _I thought I could, but I can't_ , he says, and you take another, desperate step forward. He's shaking like a leaf and your heart is in your throat, pounding away, while his is steady. Calm. Resigned. _I can't even tell if I'm awake._

You freeze.

He looks up. Meets your eyes.

 _I can't even tell if I'm alive,_ he whispers, like it's a secret. A confession. He flicks his claws out.

 _You are,_ you say, frantic for a reason you can't even decipher, something about this all seems off, seems _impending, anticipatory_ , and you're desperate, all of a sudden, stepping forward until you're almost close enough to touch him. _You are, I swear you are._

 _Nice try_ , he says, chuckling. He cocks his head. _You want it so bad? You can fucking have it._

He drives his claws into his chest and _twists_ viciously, and he's screaming and you're screaming, blood pouring out of his mouth and from his chest and he's collapsing into your arms, and you have to reach inside his chest to pry his claws from his heart, hands shaking, and you're screaming and he's _dying_ and you're screaming and screaming and screaming.

**Author's Note:**

> so!! how was that!! Very Experimental but I had an interesting time just going with the flow with no outline and no expectations. shifting narrative perspective is kinda tricky, but I think i'm okay with how it turned out. please do let me know what you thought! (also, don't worry, that mcd tag is NOT up there, so this isn't the end for theo. there's more to come.)
> 
> Tell me what you liked, what you didn't!! As always, all feedback is welcomed and highly appreciated :)  
> If you want to come scream at me on tumblr, feel free to find me at [inabottlelikelightning](https://www.inabottlelikelightning.tumblr.com/)


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